Thread: W.B. YEATS anyone?

I am a fan of w.b. yeats and love his published work. One poem in particular I loved so much was:

He wishes for the cloths of heaven. I love this poem so much simply because the way he wrote it. It makes you delve into your own thoughts and memories to see if you can come anywhere close to expressing ones thoughts.

Can anyone else tell me what other poems by w.b. yeats they love?

wacker

Well, he first came to my attention with "The Second Coming", probably his most-read work, I would think?
It certainly blew me away. Very extremely modern and much in keeping with my own interests, unlike so much of the la-di-dah stuff from English classes.

I adore this poet !!

two works of his instantly ocme to mind:
"The Stolen Child" and the short poem I shall copy here:

“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.”

I remember having to study some of his works at school. 'The Second Coming' was one of those poems that I had to know better than my own name.

'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' is one of my favourite Yeats poems too. It's so quiet and elegant. I studied him for a whole module, and I remember that that one poem really hit me. Incredibly hard to analyse!

A few of my favourites, from early stuff to late: Ephemera, When You Are Old, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Adam's Curse (last two stanzas especially), Wild Swans at Coole, An Irish Airman Forsees his Death, Broken Dreams, Sailing to Byzantium, Meditations in Time of Civil War, Leda and the Swan, and The Circus Animal's Desertion ("I must lie down where all the ladders start/ In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart" - so good!)

If you like the feel of 'Cloths of Heaven', you'll probably like his early stuff best. It's more dreamy and otherworldly. I think having to study 'The Second Coming' too many times ruined it for me a bit, though I still think the last two lines are very powerful. The first time I read it though, I didn't really know what was going on!

-R

	The Circus Animals' Desertion I I sought a theme and sought for it in vain, I sought it daily for six weeks or so. Maybe at last, being but a broken man, I must be satisfied with my heart, although Winter and summer till old age began My circus animals were all on show, Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot, Lion and woman and the Lord knows what. II What can I but enumerate old themes, First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams, Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose, Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems, That might adorn old songs or courtly shows; But what cared I that set him on to ride, I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride? And then a counter-truth filled out its play, 'The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it; She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away, But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it. I thought my dear must her own soul destroy So did fanaticism and hate enslave it, And this brought forth a dream and soon enough This dream itself had all my thought and love. And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea; Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said It was the dream itself enchanted me: Character isolated by a deed To engross the present and dominate memory. Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of. III Those masterful images because complete Grew in pure mind, but out of what began? A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street, Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can, Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

The Circus Animals' Desertion - I love this poem, (ottava rima), by Yeats. It is written out of despair. Yeats writes of the inability to write and loss of inspiration. It is a poem well worth learning.

w. b. yeats was a visionary poet and his capability to envision is evident in " the second coming". his collection the Tower has some very beautiful poems.